How the spirit of the Rock triumphed over the prudence of the Northern

Hindsight suggests that the Rock was always likely to get the Northern into trouble one day. The Northern Counties Permanent Building Society, founded in 1850 as the successor to the Newcastle Land Society, was by reputation ‘a serious establishment’ (one of its first decisions was to ban women from its board, a ruling observed by its successor until 1999) and its early growth was relatively slow. By the turn of the 20th century, it still had only 216 mortgage borrowers, and was one of no less than 29 building societies in a city of 270,000 people. During and after the second world war it expanded by absorbing smaller societies — the Crown, the Workington, the Elswick — but it remained firmly rooted in its home region and the high-minded principles of mutuality.

The Rock Permanent Benefit was 15 years younger than the Northern, and ‘seen as a much more light-hearted place’, according to a local historian.